The background of the invention will be set forth in two parts.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention pertains generally to the field of feeding and nesting animals and more particularly to a new and useful food blanket having edible material dispersed in a pad of nesting material.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The following United States patents were disclosed by a preliminary search.
______________________________________ Patent No. Inventor Date ______________________________________ 1,990,712 S. Rose 2/12/1935 2,808,679 R. E. Collins 10/8/1957 2,235,959 L. G. Copeman 3/25/1941 2,463,704 J. T. Lloyd et al 3/8/1949 3,094,100 G. E. Wise 6/18/1963 3,122,129 G. E. Wise 2/25/1964 ______________________________________
The patent to Rose discloses a container for bird seed which is provided with a cover. The cover serves as a food tray when it is removed from the container and attached to a bird cage. A bird food biscuit is attached to the inside of the cover.
The patent to Copeman relates to a suet cake container which serves as a shipping carton and which may be opened into a bird-feeding station.
The patent to Lloyd et al. relates to a device for inducing young poultry to eat. Feed which has been brightly colored by means of dyes and furnished in the form of pellets, wafers, or the like is placed on top of a supply of regular starting mash where the poults may readily see the bright colors. The poults start pecking at the brightly colored objects and get enough of the starter mash to develop a taste for it.
The patent to Collins relates to a pest exterminator having a poison disposed on the side surface of an elongated strip of suitable flexible material such as woven cloth, paper or the like.
The patents to Wise both relate to bird feeders wherein bird feed is adhesively secured to a strip of burlap or the like.
The feeders disclosed in these patents are subject to the disadvantage that an animal using the feeder cannot also use the media which carries the feed as a nesting material.